George Harrison is my hero. There are several heroes who have played a part in piecing me together, but at this precise moment I'd like to talk about this man. Some of my earliest memories are of the music my family used to play. As a unit their taste could only be described as eclectic, but as individuals they had their own grooves. My Dad loved jazz and musicals of the forty's and fifties. My brother had his prog rocky Pink Floyd and Genesis. My sister was all about punk and new romanticism. They all however, loved the Beatles. I remember days where I'd wake up, pull on some stretchy pamper type nappy things and waddle into my sister's room. She would remove Never Mind the Bollocks from her portable red and beige vinyl record player and put on Magical Mystery Tour, or Sgt Pepper instead. The mad lyrics and close harmony of those albums in particular had enormous appeal to my tiny ears. As early as the age of 3 I'd decided George was my favourite Maybe because my sister loved the belligerent John, and my brother the straight laced Paul that I immediately picked the side of the one I saw as the talented, unsung underdog. That was that. George was my fave'. As the years went on, events would unfold every now and then to vindicate my choice. By the age of ten, Monty Python was blowing my mind. Not their series so much as their films. I noticed they were all made by the same production company; Handmade Films. The founder was George Harrison. He had re mortgaged his house to ensure the completion of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I learned about the Concert for Bangladesh, the way he approached the fact that his best friend had fallen in love with his wife in the most positive way, how he set up a humanitarian fund for UNICEF to help children caught in humanitarian emergencies. He would never seek limelight unless it was to use his name to help someone else. It is his music which amazes me most of all. I don't think the vocabulary exists that can express how I 'see' it. There is an innocence, a simplicity, truth, love, boldness, a naked vulnerability in so many of his songs that they so often make me cry whilst smiling. After his passing in 2001, his friends and family got together and held the Concert For George. It's a beautiful thing to see and hear as there is nothing but love in that concert hall. Here's a few links to the concert. I defy you not to get at least a little bleary eyed.
The crontrarian, the sceptic and the misery guts (I'm looking at you Morrissey http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/london-2012/9456684/London-2012-Olympics-have-made-England-foul-with-patriotism-says-Morrissey.html) may focus on the corporate branding, the cost and the possible corruption of representatives of the IOC, but the Olympics are good. They're good in the same way that people are good. Mostly. To quote Stevie and Paul: "There is good and bad, hmmmm, in everyone. But we learn to live, and we learn to give each other what we need to survive. Together we thri-hive....", but I digress. As good people we don't focus on the bad in everyone. We all have bad, but as long as the good outweighs the bad: we're good. Right? It's the same with the Olympics.
As a species we compete. We compete to evolve as we have done since the first prokaroyte cells jimmied for position in the primordial soup three and a half billion years ago. We compete to be better, fitter, faster, stronger because we're programmed to. And I love that. I love that with all our understandings of the universe around us, we're still basically strutting our stuff in front of all the other girls and boys. 'Hey darlin, look how high I can jump. I dig how fast you run. Lets get together and have babies who can run and jump faster and higher than all the other babies.' A simplification of the sexual imperative, but you you get my point.
Unfortunately, as we grew in numbers and developed a bit of a collective subconscious we managed to warp this little dance into war. War is bad, but is definitely a competition. The winners get to write their history, pass on their genes and impose their beliefs on any surviving losers. The losers die, or are consumed by the ideals of the winners.
The Olympic games, on the other hand, is a competition where we don't have to send armies and no one dies. The winners get a big cheer, some bling and a pat on the back. The losers get a big cheer and a pat on the back. Then the winners often retire and coach the losers to become winners, so in the long run; everybody wins!
One of the wonders of the games is that the winners are almost incidental. The heroes are those who compete in the truest spirit of the games. I give you Eric 'The Eel' Moussambani, who had never seen a 50m pool before the competition, and had only learnt to swim 8 months beforehand. Hamadou Djibo, the single sculls rower from Niger, finished a full minute behind his closest competitor in a 2000m race. Sarah Attar, Saudi Arabia's first female track athlete was 30 seconds off the pace in the 800m. Eddie the Eagle, the Jamaican bob-sleigh team, there is an enormous list of Olympic 'no hopers', but they were all cheered as great competitors.
Governments may want to be dicks to each other, but the vast majority of us just want to be friends. So we'll use Maccas', Coke and Nike (not to pick on American firms, but those are all I can think of right now), a few possibly dodgy officials and a tonne of tax money to have a couple of weeks that just about everyone is invited to. Then we'll celebrate in a way that transcends petty religious and political differences, and remember that we're really not that different after all. I can think of nothing else in history, not even in war, that brings together so many non political representatives of so many nations. And they come together to play games and have a party. Beautiful.
